Rumors

Rumors are unverified accounts or explanations which spread from person to person, but whose veracity may not be quickly or ever confirmed. Rumors tend to be about matters of interest to people, and may be salacious. Furthermore, rumors are often outright falsehoods, dissemintated for purposes of creating misinformation about the target of the rumor.

Straightway throughout the Libyan cities flies rumor;—the report of evil things than which nothing is swifter; it flourishes by its very activity and gains new strength by its movements; small at first through fear, it soon raises itself aloft and sweeps onward along the earth. Yet its head reaches the clouds. * * * A huge and horrid monster covered with many feathers: and for every plume a sharp eye, for every pinion a biting tongue. Everywhere its voices sound, to everything its ears are open.